All You Need Is Love
by RedwingBluebird
Summary: Couples are being abducted in Couer d'Couers, and the BAU decides to investigate the case. But when Chuck becomes a witness to one of the kidnappings, Ned does all he can to keep the agents from noticing the would-be dead girl.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: If I owned either of these shows, I wouldn't be writing fanfictions of them. Now read this and review it. This is my first fanfic. Please review. You don't even have to read it, actually. Just lie and say you did, then give me fake feedback. Make me feel awesome? Also, I solemnly swear that my next chapter will be a lot more fun. It's exposition. Don't blame me._

**COUER d'COUERS**

Alissa Reynolds was twenty-eight years, three months, two days, ninety-seven minutes and thirteen seconds old, and not a moment older. She smiled at her husband, Daniel, who was thirty years, five months, twenty-seven days, two hundred and six minutes and forty-five seconds old as they walked down the busy street. They had each typed their birthdays as coordinates into their cars GPS and driven to that spot in the hopes that it was not in the ocean or in Venezuela, as Daniel was no longer allowed within the limits of that country. The couple walked hand-in-hand down the street, and stopped on a street corner, with the moonlight playing off of their faces.

"I love you, Liss," Dan whispered, then leaned forward to kiss her, brushing her dark hair out of her face.

Alissa would have responded, but she found herself quite distracted by the man holding a gun to her head. "You want her to live, you're coming with me," he said brusquely to Dan. Dan paled, blue eyes bugging out in shock. "Let's go," he warned, then, when Dan did not respond, pulled out a small knife from his pocket with the hand he had wrapped around Alissa. "Do you really need me to threaten with two weapons?"

Dan decided quickly. He stepped forward, to the car that obviously belonged to the killer… and tried to wrench the gun from his hands. It went off with a loud bang, though not nearly as loud as either of the happy couple would have hoped. The man hit Daniel in the face with an elbow, knocking him down, and stabbed Alissa in the side, hard. She began to scream. "Shut up or he dies," he said, now pointing his gun to Dan. She consented, but was shaking from pain. He quickly picked up both lovers and threw them into his car trunk, locking it. Then he reached into his car and pulled out the bodies of his two last victims, pathetic as they were, and drove off.

Alissa Reynolds was twenty-eight years, three months, two days, ninety-eight minutes and fifty-seven seconds old. Her husband, Dan Reynolds, was thirty years, five months, twenty-seven days, two hundred and eight minutes and twenty-nine seconds old, and neither of them knew if they would get a chance to be a second older.

Three stories above, Charlotte Charles had seen nearly everything. The woman had been watching Ned, the pie baker whom she had had her first kiss with, sleeping on the couch until she had realized that maybe that would look slightly obsessive. With that thought, she had quickly turned to see the view outside of the window. She had been admiring the love story going on on the pavement below until she saw the gunman. That was when her thoughts changed from those of herself and Ned to those of panic and the need to call the police. However, calling the police would not be the best idea on her part, because she had been murdered a year before. Instead of taking action, she frantically called for Ned.

Ned the pie-baker was not asleep. He had woken up at the exact moment Chuck had turned towards the window. The pie baker was watching her look out the window, amazed that he could be so lucky as to still have his childhood sweetheart with him, until he had realized that maybe his watching her all the time was starting to look slightly obsessive. Then he had pretended to fall asleep again, watching her through squinted eyes. However, Chuck's panic got his attention very quickly, as did the sound of the gunshot that immediately followed it. "What is it?" he asked. Ned jumped up and ran towards the window, tripping on the extension cord of the lamp on the way there.

He would have fallen straight into the auburn-haired woman if his dog, Digby, hadn't been standing next to her and hadn't had the good sense to pull her away. Both the pie maker and the previously dead girl stared in open-mouthed horror at each other. "Good boy, Digby," Chuck finally said, giving the dog the hug that Ned himself could not. Digby, in return, licked the woman on the face, which Ned could not do, because his Master always did seem very sad that he could not touch the happy one, and the happy one always tasted like honey.

The tall man got up, mentally berating himself for not being more careful. "I'm sorry," he said pleadingly as a scream tore the night. He got up, remembering why he had almost caused Chuck's second death. How could he be so stupid? Chuck would only stay alive so long as he did not touch her, since his touch had been what brought her to life again. How could he endanger her second life again?

As the pie baker drenched himself in self-loathing combined with slight panic over what was going on outside, Chuck was watching the killer exchange living for dead victims. "Apologize later, Ned. I think the killer's back," she said with fear. "And I just witnessed his last kidnapping."

Ned went to the window. The car had already driven off, leaving two bodies directly in front of his shop. "Oh, that can't be good," he said in an attempt to keep himself from hyperventilating.

It did not work.

**QUANTICO, VIRGINIA**

The seven members of the BAU were seated around the conference room table, looking at Jennifer Jareau, fondly called "JJ" by her fellow, to begin briefing them on the new case. JJ passed out the files, picked up the remote to the screen behind her, and began speaking.

"Yesterday at midnight in Couer d'Couers, a local man witnessed the abduction of a young couple from the third story window over his bakery." JJ clicked her pointer, showing a picture of the crime scene in question. It was a corner store, shaped like a giant pie with the words 'The Pie Hole' written across the crust in cursive neon lights.

"I wonder what he sells," Derek Morgan murmured inanely.

"I really couldn't tell ya, hot stuff," Penelope Garcia replied with a wink. "We should check it out together." The bubbly computer extraordinaire was happily in a relationship, but flirting with the inarguably attractive Morgan had always been a large part of her day.

"Well, it is a bakery shaped like a giant pie, with the word pie in its name, so one would think that it would sell pie," Spencer Reid pointed out, not realizing that the two were trying to be ironic. There was then a short awkward silence.

"Reid, for a genius, there's really a lot you don't get," Emily Prentiss remarked. JJ cleared her throat.

"Anyway. The identity of the couple is currently unknown. However, the killer exchanged the bodies of his two last victims, Henry Warren and Austin Tyson, for the couple he kidnapped." She clicked again, to show the two men's faces on the screen. "This has been happening for the past month at irregular intervals. All of the bodies have been found in the same one-block radius. In fact, the bakery marks the exact center of the abduction zone."

"It could be possible that the unsub has a particular hatred of that bakery," Morgan offered.

"Yes, but it could also just be a coincidence. Something had to be in the middle of all of the abductions. We shouldn't make assumptions yet," Aaron Hotchner replied.

JJ clicked again, showing the three other couples. She took a deep breath before she said, "All of the victims have a chest wound, but the pathological examiner believes that they died of lack of oxygen distribution, not blood loss. She's not sure, but she thinks…" JJ wasn't sure if she could finish. Luckily for her, David Rossi was able to grasp the train of thought.

"Our unsub kills the victims by cutting their hearts out."

_DUN DUN DUN. How's that for creepy? Well, PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE R&R, even if it made you want to kick a puppy. I want to know how you guys feel. I'll post part two when I get five reviews. Deal?_


	2. Chapter 2

_Hey guys. It's part two now. You may notice that this is set after season four of Criminal Minds and before season two of Pushing Daisies. It's because I only own season one of PD and it's not on television anymore. Sorry. Hopefully this chapter is gonna have twice the awesome and half the calories anyway. Also, I've decided to throw the 'five reviews' thing out the window, because I am quite impatient, and I now realize my first chapter wasn't very strong. So enjoy chapter two!_

"**I would rather have eyes that cannot see; ears that cannot hear; lips that cannot speak; than a heart that cannot love." – Robert Tizon**

**SOMEWHERE IN THE SKY**

The profilers all were sitting on the comfortable leather seats of the FBI jet, with the noted addition of Garcia. Normally the computer wizard would stay in Quantico with the amazingly advanced software there, but since the BAU's last visit the town had acquired a wildly excellent computer system which she had somehow managed to get permission to use for a week. Hotch suspected that the woman had used her hacking powers for her own purposes and given herself permission, but decided not to say anything. She could always keep the mood from getting too dark to tolerate.

Morgan was idly flipping through the file when he noticed something familiar about the geography. He looked at it, puzzled, until it clicked.

"Hey, didn't we go here on a serial murder a couple of years ago?" he asked, sure of the answer. He didn't remember much of the case itself, but he did remember that travel agency in one of the crime scene photos. 'Boutique Travel Travel Boutique'. It wasn't like that was something anyone would come up with.

Reid looked up from the file. He had assumed that everyone else remembered going there too, forgetting that he was the only one with an eidetic memory (ironically enough). "It was about a month before Emily started working with us," he replied as he went back to perusing the file. "The unsub was killing his victims by suffocating them with a plastic bag. The day after we got there, the aunt of the first victim shot the killer and we went home."

"Oh, yeah," Morgan said. He was blocking that particular trip out of his mind, because he was the one who had to interview the two aunts. They had apparently taken a liking to him. It took a lot to make Derek Morgan uncomfortable, but those two managed it. The agent shuddered slightly. Aaron Hotchner understood why. He was lucky that he was still able to play the 'married' card back then.

Rossi and Emily exchanged a bemused glance. Judging from the reactions that were now occurring on the faces of Derek Morgan and Aaron Hotchner, something incredibly uncomfortable had occurred in Couer d'Couers. They both decided not to ask.

**COUER D'COUERS**

Emerson Cod, private detective, made his way into the Pie Hole, using all of his subterfuge ability to avoid attracting the attention of a certain waitress. He made it all the way to the third booth in before Olive Snook caught him.

"Hey there, Emerson! What're you walking around all sneaky-like for?" she asked brightly from directly behind him. "I must say, for a larger man you are certainly good at sneaking! You're like Winnie the Pooh, if Winnie was a ninja."

The detective scowled. "And you are acting more annoyingly peppy than usual." He had just meant it as a way to make Olive shut up, but the blonde perked up even more, if that was possible.

"Well, yesterday I had the flu and it was terrible- I was sneezing so often it was like congestion Morse code. So Ned made me go to the doctor because he said that the sneezing was putting off the customers, and I said I was fine, but he made Chuck take me anyway, and when I got there the doctor made me take some medicine and then I went to sleep and now I feel happier than a clam at a crab-boil! Isn't that great?" Olive asked. Emerson would have fixed her with The Stare, but he was genuinely concerned now.

"Do you know exactly what the doctor gave you…?" Emerson asked with an eyebrow raised. Olive paused to reflect.

"Nope!" she replied happily. "Today's pretty slow, isn't it?" she asked, making small talk.

Emerson finally gave her The Stare. "Maybe that's because of the crime tape and local police officers directly in front of the door?" he offered drily.

The blonde frowned. "There was no need to hurtful," she admonished, then walked to the window. "Wonder when they got there…"

Seizing his chance, Emerson ran in the strange way respectable-looking men run to the kitchen's back room, where he found Ned and Chuck, sitting on opposite sides of his working table in the dim light of a single window. "Do you have any idea what you've gotten yourselves into?" he demanded angrily.

Ned shifted uncomfortable. Whenever Emerson looked at him that angrily he found himself breaking into a cold sweat. "Um, I have no idea what you mean when you say that. There are a lot of instances where I get myself into things and since in this case I have no idea what you're talking about, no, of course not." His eye twitched slightly. Chuck tried to be good backup by nodding seriously. She did not do that well.

Emerson glared again. "I mean letting dead girl over there call the police as a witness to the murder and letting her use your name. You do realize that she's a girl, and that you're… Well, you're something." Ned looked slightly offended. "And on top of that, a… 'friend'," (in that instance, when Emerson said 'friend' he meant 'guy who owes me') "at the police station told me that the FBI are coming down to help our lovely local cops solve the case. You know what the last time was that the FBI came down here?" he asked angrily.

"The annual Couer d'Couers federal employee clambake," Chuck said with a glowing smile. "Remember? It was last month. We sent some pies over for them."

Emerson shook his head angrily. "Not these g-men. These ones were last here when a certain someone was murdered with a smiley-face plastic bag." He glared at the young woman on the word 'murdered'. "Camping out in the back room may be a good plan for hiding from the police, but the FBI are gonna want answers, and they will ask to talk to you about it whether Little Miss Sunshine lets them in or not." By Little Miss Sunshine, he obviously meant Olive.

Ned's eyes grew wide, and he looked at Chuck with panic. The FBI would find it odd that the man who witnessed the murder was unable to answer questions about and did not sound at all like he did on the phone, and then they would find that the _real _girl who witnessed the murder looked uncannily like that girl who was murdered a while back, and then the government would kidnap both he and Chuck and do strange experiments on them, eventually locking them in a vault and making him resurrect Ronald Reagan, and Ned did not want that to happen. The pie baker did not realize he was saying that out loud until he noticed his two companions eyeing him confusedly.

"Why Ronald Reagan?" Chuck asked. "Why not Donatello, or Raphael?"

"They're both more famous as Ninja Turtles than they are as artists, so I don't think the government would really care to bring them back," Ned replied, his voice getting squeaky. Banter was safe. Banter had nothing to do with losing the girl of his dreams and his whole life because of some stupid quirk he didn't even want.

Emerson, of course, did not care for the banter. If Ned was taken by the government, that would mean that he was back to solving crimes the hard way. That would mean he had less time to work on his pop-up book. And he hated to admit it, but he'd started to like the scrawny, anxiety-ridden kid. "Look. If we're gonna keep them away from dead girl, we have to solve the case before the start looking to far into it." Ned twitched slightly.

Chuck saw his discomfort. "Wait. I have an idea," she said. "If it doesn't work, we can try to solve this ourselves, but this just might work."

_Okay. It's only slightly more fun. But next episode is awesome in my head. I'll publish chapter three when I feel like the world is ready. So… pretty soon._


	3. Chapter 3

_Well, here it is. Chapter three. Hope ya love it._

**COUER D'COUERS**

Hotch and Rossi led the BAU team, minus Garcia and JJ, who were at the police station squealing at how amazing the computers were (Garcia) and checking for any possible previous murders in the database (Jennifer Jareau and eventually Garcia), to the last crime scene. Before they approached the police, Hotch said over his shoulder, "Reid, Emily, you go talk to the witness," he said, motioning at the giant pie. The glare from the neon lights was a little bit painful to look at, so he guarded his eyes a bit with his hand.

Reid and Prentiss walked forward, leaving Morgan, Rossi, and Hotch behind to talk to the police and check out the crime scene. A short blond woman was standing pressed against the window, watching them approach from behind Venetian blinds. Spencer Reid was used to odd behavior, but that was weirder than usual. He started to try to get his fellow agent's attention, but by that time the blinds flew back into place and the two of them were at the door.

Emily started to open it, and was immediately accosted by the same woman. "Hi there, welcome to The Pie Hole! Our pie of the day is triple berry, and our expresso machine is now in working order-" At that moment, Digby ran forward and started barking at Reid. He paled and flinched.

"Aren't there laws against having a dog in a bakery?" Reid asked, not liking the fact that another animal wanted to attack him.

"Actually, no," she began; both agents could now see her nametag, which read 'Olive', "only in restaurants. But don't worry about Digby, he's a good dog. Aren't you, boy?" she asked, reaching down to pet him. At that point Digby chose to growl at the awkward man and run to the back. Reid cowered slightly until the golden was out of sight. Olive walked around behind the bar section of the bakery, and the two followed. "So what can I get you folks today?" she asked, her mega-watt smile on her face.

"Agents Emily Prentiss and Dr. Spencer Reid, FBI," Emily said, pulling out her badge; Reid quickly fumbled to do the same. "We'd like to talk to Ned-"

But Olive started talking before Prentiss could finish. "I can't believe it! You are way too pretty to be in the FBI. And look at you!" Olive said, leaning forward to pinch Reid's cheek. Reid leaned backwards. That had never happened to him on the job before. He had been mistaken for a student many times, yes; but this was quite different."You're too cute! Would you like some coffee, or some pie?"

Emily looked over at Reid. The poor kid looked like he'd been violated. "Ma'am, we'd just like to speak to Ned," she stated, hoping the waitress- Olive- wouldn't try to touch Reid again.

"Is this about those people at Bittersweets? Because Ned was innocent, and you all know it, and the real killer has already been caught, so-"

Emily cut her off before she could get involved in a whole other issue. "No, we're actually here about the murder scene outside and the fact that a man by the same name as the owner of this bakery called as a witness," she explained patiently.

Olive's eyes widened slightly. "Well he's off… shaving his cat, but he should be done soon. Are you sure you don't want some pie, for the wait? Since you're solving a crime and all, I don't think that there'll be any problems with me putting it on the house." Emily and Reid looked at each other again.

"Um, we're actually here on our job, and our boss is right outside… we just need to talk to Ned," Reid said nervously. For a second, panic showed in Olive's eyes.

"I'll go get him, but you might have to wait 'til he's done. Cats don't much like to be washed. Er, shaved. Oh, look, a seagull!" Olive pointed upwards, then ran to the back while their eyes were averted.

Emily raised an eyebrow. "Am I the only one who gets the feeling she's hiding something?" she asked, slightly skeptical.

"She pinched my cheek…" Reid said, sounding traumatized.

While Emily tried to keep super-genius Spencer Reid from having a nervous breakdown, Olive was trying to retrieve Ned. "Ned! The FBI people are here," she hissed at him. Chuck looked up from the table, where she was coaching him on everything she saw. Emerson was busy trying to keep Ned from twitching, sweating, or touching his face while he talked. "They don't want pie and I don't know how else to hold them off." Charlotte Charles definitely wasn't Olive Snook's favorite person, but her aunts would be emotionally destroyed if they found out she had faked her own death to live with Ned in his bakery.

Ned wasn't ready. He was too pale, he was sweating, and his eye was twitching uncontrollably. Emerson grabbed him and dragged him roughly to the front. "C'mon, kid. We've got FBI agents to convince."

"Good luck, Ned!" Chuck cried brightly. Ned waved at her halfheartedly as both the gumshoe and the waitress propelled him forward until he was directly in front of the agents.

Reid had recovered by this point, and was now surveying the décor. The bakery had a rich, almost old-fashioned kind of feel to it. He had never seen any room furnished like it. Well, the station was a bit odd, too, but less so than this. He swiveled back and forth on the barstool until he realized a lanky, anxious-looking man approached, dragged by Olive and a rather venerable-looking black man. Upon delivering her cargo, the young woman scrambled back to the back room; however, the man stayed put.

"Hi, I'm N-Ned," Ned stuttered out as he reached forward to shake hands. His whole arm shook as he held it out.

"I'm Emily Prentiss, and this is Dr. Spencer Reid," Emily said again, flashing her badge and then shaking his hand. "Are you all right?" she asked with concern as he shoved the offending appendages into his apron pockets. Maybe the woman was covering for him because he wasn't good at talking to people, Prentiss thought to herself.

"He's _fine_," Emerson said smoothly. "Never been better. And you?"

"Um, who exactly are you?" Reid asked, slightly confused.

"He's a pri…" Ned faltered as Emerson made his 'no-you-idiot' gesture at him, using the pie display to screen his hands from view. "…vate uncle. Of my family," Ned finished. Emerson was strongly tempted to bury his face in his hands and sigh exaggeratedly.

Not for the last time, Reid and Prentiss's brows furrowed in confusion. They didn't want to say anything, but the man who remained unnamed was in fact black. The pie maker was not.

Ned quickly clarified. "Um, he was adopted."

Prentiss shook her head and chose to ignore it. She just wanted to get this interview over with by this point. "Tell me everything you can remember about what happened last night," she prompted.

"Um, okay. Well, I was in my house alone and not with anyone else, and I decided to look out the window, and on the street below my window a couple was walking by. Then a car parked on the street and a figure dressed in black held the woman at gunpoint. When the man didn't respond, the… figure… pulled out a knife as well. Then sh-" Ned quickly covered his blunder, but paled slightly, a seemingly impossible feat. "I mean, I- was tackled out of the way by Digby, and I got back up in time to see the abducter drop off his last abducts in exchange for his new abductees. Then I called 911, but at the time I was slightly freaked out, and sometimes when that happens my voice gets very high… just so you know… Can I go now? I have pies to bake, people to serve… you know…" With each word, his voice got a bit lower.

Reid and Prentiss looked around. The bakery/restaurant was still completely empty, other than the imposing gentleman next to Ned.

"He has a lot of deliveries," Emerson clarified, glaring at his crime-solving partner, whose eye was twitching uncontrollably. Ned quickly rubbed the offending eyeball in an attempt to mask it.

_Right… _

"Do you remember what the car looked like?" Reid asked, looking at the pie maker oddly.

Ned froze. He looked to Emerson, eyes widened to their maximum. Emerson shook his head imperceptibly. But Ned couldn't lie. If Chuck knew what it looked like, that knowledge could help keep more people from dying, and Ned had enough lives for three people on his conscience.

Ned quickly hit the bell he kept under the booth. "Oh! The timer for those pies which I was making earlier has gone off and now I have to check them in the back… one second!" he said unconvincingly, then ran to the back room where Chuck was.

"What did the car look like?" he asked in a panicked whisper.

Chuck's mouth fell open. So that's what she forgot. "It was a four-door gray one with tinted windows," she whispered back. "And- Oh! The plate number started with a PH, because I remember thinking PH, Pie Hole, but the rest was blocked by a fire hydrant." Ned looked horrible. He was sweating more than before, he was white as a ghost, and his eye was twitching sporadically. "I still can put on a disguise or something, Ned…" she offered, seeing how much worse he looked now and feeling terrible about it.

"No, Chuck, they can still recognize you. You are staying back here until the FBI are gone and then we're going to forget about this whole thing and someday we'll laugh about it," he answered.

"You can do this, Ned," Chuck projected as he disappeared.

Ned ran back to the counter. "It was a gray four-door with tinted windows," he said, slightly out of breath. "And its license plate started PH."

Reid wrote that down, then asked, "Who were you talking to back there?"

Ned looked to Emerson, who finally relented and helped the kid out. "Sometimes he talks to his pies."

Ned took up the strain nervously. "It's like plants. Plants grow better if you talk to them; pies bake better if you tell them how delicious they're going to be." He was only twitching slightly.

Emily raised an eyebrow. "Do your pies talk back to you often, or was that just today?"

Ned's mouth fell open. "I like to think they do," he finally managed. Emerson barely controlled his irritated sigh reflex.

_Longest chapter yet! Wooo! Next chapter should be up soon… ish… Again, when I feel you are ready for chapter four, chapter four you shall have._


End file.
